Name: Cup Pudding
Ingredients: 2 cups flour; 1 cup suet; 1 cup currants; 1 cup raisins; 1 cup milk; ½ teaspoon nutmeg; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup brown sugar

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cup Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

Mix all ingredients together until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a buttered basin.

Steam and serve

Steam for 2 hours.
Serve with brandy or another sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour: Forms the structure of the pudding as it steams.
Suet: Adds richness and a tender, moist crumb as it melts.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and sugar to form a soft, pourable batter.
Baking soda: Reacts with the mixture to lighten the pudding and help it rise.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a molasses note that deepens the flavour.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, milk, nutmeg, sugar):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, milk, nutmeg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.